Sea Dragon [Lung Wang]

Kin to the dragon turtle, the lung wang pairs a turtle's shelled body and crested neck with the head of a spirit dragon, long golden whiskers included. The shell is built of heavy green scales flecked with silver, and finer, paler green scales with gold flecks cover its head and neck. The hind legs are stubby flippers, but each foreleg is 80% as long as the shell and ends in two razor-sharp talons.

It cannot fly, kick, tail slap or wing buffet, yet a lung wang is a fearsome enemy, above all to ships. When an unwelcome vessel enters its waters, the dragon rises beneath it to overturn it. Its chance is its own length divided by the ship's, times 100, to a maximum of 95%: a 20-foot dragon has 25% against an 80-foot ship, and always 95% against a vessel its own size or smaller.

Once the ship rolls, the dragon breathes and claws and bites everyone it can reach. Survivors who show proper humility and offer a large treasure, usually the ship's entire cargo of valuables, may be spared; otherwise it tries to kill every passenger for trespassing. Underwater intruders get the same treatment.

The breath is a steam cone 100 feet long, 5 feet wide at the mouth and 50 feet wide at the far end, usable 3/day and just as deadly underwater as in air. Damage depends on age; a save vs. breath weapon halves it. A lung wang breathes air and water from birth, is immune to all fire and heat, magical or not, and has scaly command over 4d10 creatures times its age category (4d10 x 3 for a young dragon). Later gains, each 1/day: wall of fog that blinds sight in a radius of 50 feet times the age category (adult), and suggestion (old).

Every passing ship owes tribute to these self-appointed rulers of the waves. Frequent travelers often strike a bargain, dropping a fixed sum of treasure into the waves at an agreed place to keep the dragon content. They speak their own language, those of spirit dragons, fish and the celestial court, plus every human tongue.

Unlike most oriental dragons, they are mainly plant eaters, favoring algae and seaweed, though fish and minerals also go down, and whole ships have been eaten. They are on good terms with other oriental dragons, especially spirit dragons, and they count whales, sharks and other ocean dwellers as friends and informants. Typhoon dragons (mi lung) are their rivals.